Lithium battery safety: ACCC meets with battery manufacturers after young girl's death

By Jo SkinnerUpdated
Fri 5 Jul 2013, 6:31 AM AEST

The consumer watchdog has called a forum into the safety of lithium batteries after the death of a four-year-old girl at the weekend.

A funeral will be held this morning for the girl, from Queensland's Sunshine Coast, who died on Sunday after swallowing a coin-sized battery.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says it is concerned about the problem and has called a forum with industry groups in Sydney to discuss safety concerns.

ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard says about five children are rushed to emergency departments across Australia with button battery-related injuries every week.

"[It's] not just choking," she said.

"When you swallow these, the saliva combined with the battery can burn through the child's oesophagus into their internal organs," she said.

Ms Rickard says the forum will look into issues such as battery design, packaging, warnings and displays.

"[We will be] looking at what we can do to improve safety, such as the packaging of these batteries to make them safer [and] whether there's anything that can be done [to the] design of the batteries."

The four-year-old was taken to Noosa Hospital early on Sunday with stomach bleeding. She was transferred to Royal Brisbane Hospital but could not be saved.